My mom drilled this into our heads when we were growing up: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
The DOJ is doing just that with Alexander Smirnov. Republicans aren’t the only ones who can choose their jurisdictions. Over the objections of the DOJ, Smirnov was released by a magistrate judge in Nevada. today there is a new warrant on the same or nearly identical charges, this time in California.
Smirnov’s lawyers have said that their client would NOT flee the country or otherwise try to escape prosecution. He’s clearly an honorable and trustworthy guy; apparently the DOJ just won’t give him a break. I hope they have better luck keeping him behind bars this time.
Oh, and this photo of him leaving the courthouse isn’t creepy at all.
(CNN)
Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant indicted for lying about President Joe Biden’s family and their alleged dealings in Ukraine, has been re-arrested in Nevada.
Though prosecutors fought to keep him behind bars, Smirnov was released by Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts in Nevada on Tuesday with several conditions, including GPS monitoring and the surrender of his two passports.
Prosecutors asked the Nevada judge to delay his release, but the judge declined and Smirnov was allowed to walk out.
Now, Smirnov’s defense lawyers say their client was re-arrested Thursday on a new warrant for the exact same charges – this time signed by federal district Judge Otis Wright, who will oversee the criminal case out of California.
The unusual move means that Smirnov will need to argue for his release once again. Prosecutors had already moved for a rehearing on the matter in front of the judge in California, reasserting their concerns about Smirnov’s connections to foreign intelligence officials and his access to significant amounts of cash.
A spokesperson for special counsel David Weiss, who is prosecuting the case, confirmed Smirnov’s arrest.
Prosecutors allege that Smirnov repeatedly lied to his FBI handler, whom he worked with for more than a decade, and should not be trusted. He also has extensive contacts in Russia and elsewhere, prosecutors said, and lied to authorities about his “access to over $6 million in liquid funds — more than enough money for him to live comfortably overseas for the rest of his life.”
Smirnov has not yet entered a plea.
Smirnov’s lawyers have denied in court any assertion that their client would flee the country or otherwise try to escape prosecution. They said in their filing Thursday that Smirnov “has remained fully compliant with his conditions of release since his court-ordered release,” and slammed prosecutors for requesting a rehearing in California with “no mention of any second, then-unserved arrest warrant for Mr. Smirnov based on the same charges.”
Also news worthy. Democrats have a number of people who are just the people we need in this fight for continued democracy in the United States. Marc Elias is one of them.
🚨BREAKING: Sixteen days after it filed the case and after we intervened to defend the law, Stephen Miller’s right-wing legal group dismisses its lawsuit challenging Maricopa County, AZ voting rules.
A victory for democracy and the voters of Arizona!https://t.co/dOM9SqmO91
— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) February 22, 2024
Under the heading of Trump’s lawyers have no shame.
If Judge Cannon is foolish enough to grant this groundless motion, she will be all but asking the 11th Circuit to reverse her swiftly and remand the whole case to a different judge. https://t.co/0LDHL1vfML
— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) February 23, 2024
I hope this flurry of Trump idiocy is the opening act for a right and just response from the Supreme Court today. Could someone on the SC have given a heads up to someone in Trump’s circle? There’s just no telling who might do something like that.
Trump motions in the classified docs case tonight:
— Motion to dismiss on Presidential Immunity
— Motion to dismiss on Selective Prosecution (not public)
— Motion to dismiss Superseding Indictment, and in alternative to suppress “15 boxes” on prosecutorial misconduct (not public)— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) February 23, 2024
And I am so sick of this Fani Willis witch hunt, and I’m disgusted with McAfee for opening the door to all of this when the people raising this issue were not required to present even one single fact before he decided to hold a hearing.
@AnnaBower
NEW: Trump’s legal team wants Judge McAfee to consider additional evidence as he mulls whether Fani Willis should be disqualified. The proposed exhibit includes an affidavit from a private investigator who analyzed Nathan Wade’s cell phone location data.
Open thread.
WaterGirl
I have no particular reason to think this, and certainly no inside information, but I have a feeling that today might be a cake day in terms of legal events. Not sure, though, whether the cake will be in celebration or it will be to drown our sorrows.
Eric S.
@WaterGirl: I support Cake Day in all its forms.
Betty Cracker
Does anyone know who appointed Magistrate Judge Daniel Albregts, the guy who sprung Smirnov? He became a federal magistrate judge in 2019, so does that mean he was a FedSoc drone on Leonard Leo’s spreadsheet during the Trump regime, or is the magistrate judge appointment process different and more locally determined? (I Googled it, but it’s still unclear to me.)
Boy howdy, has 2016 – 2024 utterly destroyed any remnant of faith I had in the U.S. legal system. There are heroic people like Elias who are working within it to save democracy, but sometimes it feels like they’re trying to bail out the Titanic with a teacup.
Josie
@WaterGirl: “Smirnov’s lawyers have said that their client would flee the country or otherwise try to escape prosecution.”Third paragraph, first sentence–did you mean to say “not” in that sentence?
ETA: I so agree with you about Fani Willis. This would not be happening to a white male D.A. I hope she prevails and buries them all.
Patricia Kayden
Attorney Marc Elias is a freaking beast when it comes to defending our democracy. He’s definitely doing the Lord’s work!
The question for me is did Congressional Republicans know that Smirnov was lying to them and yet they still pursued impeachment against President Biden.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I had the same thought about that magistrate judge – who appointed him?
Good for the DOJ for pursuing another avenue rather than waiting / hoping the guy didn’t disappear before the magistrate judge would “reconsider” his ruling.
“oh, I was gonna reconsider and rule to vacate his release, but gosh darn, he seems to have disappeared before I could do that.”
Josie
@Patricia Kayden:
I saw an interview in which Buck of Colorado said they were warned.
WaterGirl
@Josie: Yes! fixed now, thank you for catching that.
cmorenc
If Trump’s claim of ability to orally (or jut by thought alone) declassify sensitive classified government documents is invalid, by what legal logic can he transform classified government documents into personal documents (e.g. simply by stuffing them in a box when he departed the White House and taking them to Mar-a-Lago? I could see Trump claiming such with respect to personal correspondence (e.g. between him and Melania or Melania’s lawyers about the prenup agreement between them, but one of the problems with giving son-in-law Jarad and daughter Ivanka official positions in his Administration is that much of his written correspondence with them become government records, not private correspondence
IMO Judge Cannon is probably smart enough to disallow Trump’s claim about transubstantiating classified docs into personal docs the way Jesus turned water into wine (so someday Christians could drink wine at worship services). She will use other, less immediately challengeable legal avenues to foot-drag the case out beyond the November election.
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden:
I have no question about that at all. Of course they knew! This isn’t a one-off where everything else they have done is above board, so this is an honest mistake.
They have built their entire house on sand and lies. No benefit of the doubt here.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Patricia Kayden: certainly it’s possible they knew. Their behavior since then, scrubbing the references from their web site, suggests they at least appreciate that this is a blow to their proceedings. I suppose nobody has explained the Wayback Machine to them.
Are they all just shameless liars like Kevin McCarthy? [see Adam Schiff for evidence of this implied assertion.] I don’t know but “signs point to yes.”
WaterGirl
@Patricia Kayden: Marc Elias is certainly a man for our time.
Suzanne
I have decided that I am a fan of food items in the category of “quick breads”, which are really just cake. Banana bread is kind of trash, but pumpkin bread is fire. Anyone have any favorites to share?
Does it count as celebrating with cake if I call it bread?
WaterGirl
@cmorenc: This is just more bullshit. Delay, delay, delay. And since Cannon is so clearly in his corner, there’s always a chance that she will rule in favor of some of the shit they are throwing.
Craig
@Patricia Kayden: absolutely. Republicans are a post truth party.
TBone
“I had done it. I had scared the man who wrote “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” – Sarah Kendzior. Who dug up the fact that Fani Willis Defendant Roman was a Koch Bros. oppo research guy. Highly recommended reading (all her stuff, not just this).
https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/fearing-the-reapers
Josie
@Suzanne:
My granddaughter and I could not find the cocoa powder to make a chocolate cake, and every cake must contain chocolate of course. So we found this super easy recipe for Chocolate Chip Cake. It turned out really good and will go on the regular rotation.
Ingredients
Cake Batter:
2 cups (284 g) all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups (318 g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 ⅓ cups (302 g) sour cream
10 tablespoons (141 g) butter, softened
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cinnamon + Sugar + Chocolate:
¼ cup (53 g) granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cups (340 g) chocolate chips, regular or mini (see note)
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (325 if using a glass pan). Grease a 9X13-inch pan with cooking spray and/or line with parchment paper for easier cleanup.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or in a large bowl using an electric handheld mixer, combine all of the cake batter ingredients. Mix until well-combined, about 2 minutes.
Whisk together the cinnamon and sugar until combined.
Spread half of the batter in the bottom of the prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of the cinnamon sugar and then sprinkle half of the chocolate chips over the top.
Spoon the remaining cake batter on top in large dollops and spread evenly to cover. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon and sugar and chocolate chips.
Bake for 30-35 minutes until golden on top and set around the edges and a toothpick comes out with only a few moist crumbs (don’t over bake or cake will be dry!). Serve warm or at room temperature.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne:
Cake – when it comes to celebrating things like indictments or good rulings – has a very broad definition!
Cake, pie, quick breads, scones, anything sweet counts.
If your thing to celebrate (or drown your sorrows) is kettle corn or a giant bag of king-size fritos, that also counts as cake.
Adult beverages also count as cake.
*grudgingly, I would even say that carrot cake counts as cake in this definition, even though I would never knowingly choose to eat carrot cake, and I barely consider it even food, let alone cake.
P.S. I have to wonder why you think banana bread is trash.
TBone
@Suzanne: I make a mean banana bread with walnuts but I could recommend pound cake. Butter, it’s what’s for breakfast 😊 on my grilled cheese.
Ken
Although at the same time they’re saying that Smirnoff “corroborated” other evidence. Now to me, that suggests the other evidence was also lies, and possibly even from the same source, but I’m not a Congressional Republican.
WaterGirl
@Josie: So is the chocolate layered in the cake? And you don’t swirl it before you bake it to make it a chocolate swirl?
Do you end up with gooey melted chips, or does the chocolate seep into the surrounding batter and give you “chocolate cake” in parts of it?
cmorenc
@WaterGirl: True, Cannon will continue raising obstacles to the government’s case against Trump – but MAGA-friendly though Cannon is, she was law review at Michigan (one of the top-rated state law schools in the country) and has enough other, cleverer ways to handicap the government’s timely progress of the case than to make such a blatantly unsound ruling that the classified docs in question transubstantiated into Trump’s personal possessions by some magical incantation as he departed the White House for Mar a Lago
Shorter version: she is going to use whatever means available to her to through sand in the government case’s gears that are below the threshold of dubiousness that will provoke the 11th Circuit to boot her from the case.
OzarkHillbilly
When have they ever let the truth stand in the way of a convenient lie?
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: I love banana bread.
TBone
@TBone: Sarah Kendzior
“The Indiana Bacon Festival celebrates the possibilities of pork. Bacon ice cream, bacon pie, pork cubes wrapped in bacon wrapped in a different flavor of bacon. I got a T-shirt that said “(Don’t Fear) the Bacon” because I was a VIP. You get to be a VIP at the Indiana Bacon Festival by paying extra for a folding chair in the shade instead of the sun. A Hoosier gave me a VIP badge decorated with a picture of a partitioned pig. I wore it all night long.”
Mmmm bacon. Can I make a quick bread with bacon, onion, and cheese? YES.
Bacon cake!
RaflW
@Betty Cracker: Biden has appointed — and Schumer has worked hard to confirm — a vast number of highly qualified and diverse judges.
Yes, the previous asshole got quite a few ideologues and incompetents appointed. But thankfully with only one term, the damage had some limits. SCOTUS is the horrifying exception, of course.
OzarkHillbilly
KILL THE HERETIC! KILL THE HERETIC!
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
OF COURSE, they knew he was lying.
It’s not like Smirnov was the first witness that completely fell apart in this farce.
He’s down the road of a long line of witnesses that have just fallen apart when any kind of light is shone on them.
This entire case is a farce and a fraud.
Once again…
We are so lucky that Joe Biden is an honest man.
We had to go through all this bullshyt, because the MSM wouldn’t do their phucking jobs, and went along with this farce because ‘ Both sides’, and they were hoping to actually find something on Biden.
But, we went through this bullshyt, long enough for the truth to actually be revealed.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
Found this:
rikyrah
@cmorenc:
Her unqualified azz needed to be booted from this case from DAY ONE.
narya
@Suzanne: the way to improve banana bread is to drain the liquid from the thawing (i.e., previously frozen, overripe) bananas, then REDUCE that liquid by quite a bit, before adding it to your mix. It intensifies the banana flavor more than you’d think, and, at least for me, turns the result into something I actually want to eat. Of course, if you don’t much like bananas, it doesn’t fix that part. :-)
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: 😆
RaflW
@WaterGirl: The Hill, the house organ of GOP normalization, now admits that the GOP knew the FBI informant was very risky:
Josie
@WaterGirl:
The chocolate chips are layered throughout the cake and keep their shape although they are slightly melted. It’s an interesting and delicious combination.
TBone
I use dark brown sugar with very ripe bananas, cinnamon, and a little milk for moistness. And a parchment paper sling to get it out of the loaf pan. A sling shot, if you will.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TBone:
Sorry, Sarah Doomzior is a no go for me. She went off the deep end some years ago. She literally accused Garland, Pelosi, etc of being corrupt
TBone
@OzarkHillbilly: when it’s a criminal offense which Congress can prosecute when WE WIN back the House.
TBone
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): no apologies necessary. I don’t get insulted very easily. Different strokes and all that jazz. I admire her ability to tell a great story.
RaflW
Ken Buck, who I loathe for his many unreasonable policy positions and his bullshit below about Trump’s impeachment, has been warning about the Comer-Jordan circus/sham since at least Sept. 16th, 2023 (warning, politico):
‘Fictitious’ facts and ‘imagined’ history: GOP Rep. Ken Buck slams Biden impeachment effort
GOP Rep. Ken Buck, a member of the hardline House Freedom Caucus, slammed his caucus and party’s efforts to impeach President Joe Biden as “relying on an imagined history.”
“Trump’s impeachment in 2019 was a disgrace to the Constitution and a disservice to Americans. The GOP’s reprise in 2023 is no better,” Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) wrote in an op-ed published Friday. …
Republicans are “relying on an imagined history,” he claimed, calling the facts cited by Republicans “fictitious” and emphasizing the gravity of an impeachment inquiry.
.
eta: Buck still voted to authorize the ‘investigation’ because of course he did.
WaterGirl
@cmorenc: You may be right. But she wasn’t smart enough to not get smacked down by the 11th circuit. Twice.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Me, too.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TBone:
👍
I definitely wasn’t trying to insult you, just Kendzior, really
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: YES!
Josie
@WaterGirl:
The same granddaughter and I make chocolate banana bread by adding cocoa powder and chocolate chips to it. Yum. Are you sensing a pattern here?
kindness
This Supreme Court has to be dragged by feral cats to rule the proper way. Remember though, when they do rule properly, they always throw a bone to the Republicans by including some extraneous bullshit to make it a step forward, two steps back deal. The conservatives on the court knows who butters their bread.
TBone
@Josie: now I’m gonna invent Bananas Foster Bread.
TBone
@kindness: John Oliver buttered Ole Clarence purty good!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Same reaction here, used to read her semi-regularly but when she went off that way, all her credibility went away.
Ken
@TBone: You could try the fruitcake approach – make a denser-than-normal banana bread, pour rum over it, and seal it in a container for a few days. Or years.
trollhattan
I saw that guy on the bike path yesterday. Same outfit, giant bag of plastic bottles balanced on handlebars.
TBone
Trouble rides a fast horse. If you’re gonna be dumb, you better be tough. It’s my advice to the RWNJ cultists.
TBone
@Ken: nah, I’m gonna glaze a loaf with a hard caramel rum sauce. Learned a great hard sauce recipe in Galveston.
rikyrah
@narya:
Lord,
I love me some good banana bread with chocolate chips in it. The combination….
yum yum yum :)
NotMax
@Suzanne
Did you see the recipe link for Washington cake in Wednesday’s morning thread?
WaterGirl
@Josie: Yes, I might be. King Arthur Flour makes a really awesome really dark cocoa.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker: Magistrate Judges are hired employees of the Article III Courts. They go through a standard civil service hiring process and the permanent members of the District Court vote on their appointment to a term of years.
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: Marc Elias is on automatic monthly contributions in this house, as it Four Directions and WCK. The most effective, high leverage groups out there. I’m adding a youth voting group as soon as I decide which one.
Fake Irishman
@RaflW:
Magistrates are a different beast. They are appointed locally by the judges on the court and handle more routine cases or parts of cases (like arraignment) that the trial judges assign them. Trump was arraigned in front of a magistrate in south Florida.
My impression is that They aren’t necessarily apolitical, but are usually considered less ideological than presidential appointed judges — that’s one reason why you see a lot of magistrates later appointed to district court positions in states with Senators from the opposite party of the president (E.g Biden’s Iowa appointee and several of the Florida ones who are about to be confirmed)
StringOnAStick
@Yarrow: NV voted D because of Labor in Law Vegas, but the state government is in general very R to Bundy crazy.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@WaterGirl: And she learned from being smacked down.
She learned to be cagier. So she no longer issues substantive orders, but manages to do everything through “paperless scheduling orders”. The legal beagles say this can’t go on forever with the fictitious trial date looming, sooner or later she will be forced to issue an order and when she does she’s toast.
But “sooner or later” is apparently a different time scale to lawyers than to ordinary humans. It appears to mean “later or much, MUCH later”.
Also her (directive? paperless order?) telling the government to reveal all the FBI informants names, code names, addresses, where their children go to school, bank account numbers, etc (OK, maybe I exaggerate slightly) might have in itself been enough to get her removed if she doesn’t pull it back.
So the legal commentators are doing a lot of cackling at how her removal is inevitable, but I’m not seeing it from where I sit. Still, I take some solace.
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: We are looking for a good youth GOTV group for Balloon Juice locations.
We may have a line on one, but I’m not sure yet. If you find one, I would love to know what group is is.
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Yeah, that’s what I am seeing, too.
edit: But it’s all speculation, there’s no predicting what this court will do.
NotMax
@Fake Irishman
Also in D.C.
Betty Cracker
@RaflW: I’m grateful for every judicial appointment that offsets a shitty Trump judge, but I wonder if the system is up to the task of defending democracy from a determined, well-funded onslaught by foreign and domestic actors. We’ll find out
@Yarrow: & @Cacti: Thanks!
Jackie
@Patricia Kayden: I don’t know, but Jerry Nadler has questions for the DOJ:
geg6
@WaterGirl:
You despise carrot cake? Good. Send it all to me. I am not a fan of most cakes, but I loooove carrot cake!
TBone
@Jackie: nice. 💜
Sure Lurkalot
@TBone: Really?
100% agree with Goku.
Tony G
@Josie: A Russian bad guy named after a brand of cheap vodka. What’s next, Boris Badenoff?
Quiltingfool
@Suzanne: I buy Krustez chocolate chip muffin mix, but I’m far too lazy to make muffins; I bake the batter in a loaf pan. It’s very delicious.
I admire folks who bake from scratch, not mixes, but I’m not big on cooking or baking. Really, I’m a good cook, I make mostly simple stuff, but I just can’t get excited about food prep.
A dear friend of mine loves cooking! I was looking through one of her cookbooks, and she had “graded” (we are teachers) almost every recipe, some had comments like, “family wasn’t impressed” or “we loved this!” I used to joke with her that if our husbands left us, we should live together – she could cook and I’d do the clean up! Win-win!
Mike E
Cheese cake brownies recipe from Baker’s unsweetened chocolate box, I eschew peanut butter from the cream cheese topping (but add a Tbsp of flour) and throw in chocolate chips for good measure, even better out of the fridge the next day!
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Sure Lurkalot: I stopped reading when I reached that. *sigh*
WaterGirl
@geg6: Happy to let you have all of it! Always and forever. :-)
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Tony G: please, it’s Badenov. World’s Greatest No-Goodnik.
trollhattan
@Tony G: In Soviet Russia, Smirnov drink you!
twbrandt
@Suzanne:
Excuse me?
WaterGirl
@Sure Lurkalot: 100% agree with you on this, too. Sarah K. is all caps awful.
TrainedWreck
@Suzanne: zucchini bread w Ghirardelli’s dark choc chunks 👅
also adding Ghirardelli’s dark choc chunks to pumpkin bread/ muffins
Miss Bianca
@Josie: Again, I will say: when *Ken Buck* becomes your standard for integrity and rational thought on the GOP side, *hoo boy* are we through the looking-glass.
NotMax
@Mr. Bemused Senior
And the vodka is Smirnoff, not Smirnov.
Quiltingfool
@OzarkHillbilly: I see you love banana bread. Honestly, I’ve never been able to make banana bread that is as moist as pumpkin bread.
I do like the taste of banana bread, but any I’ve eaten is too dry. Not sure why, but considering I’m not that into cooking, I’m not really interested in finding the perfect recipe! So pumpkin bread it is!
SeattlePsyclist
@TBone: My daughter used to make me Chocolate-Cayenne Pie with Bacon Brittle on Pi day. I think this is similar to the recipe she used. Don’t eat leftover Bacon Brittle for breakfast if you have a blood draw, it visibly affects the numbers for glucose and lipids…
And yes, the last instruction is important, the pie will disappear in seconds if you turn your back on it.
from https://dabacon.org/pontiff/2009/03/12/spicy-pi-bacon-squared/
Recipe for Spicy Brittle Bacon Chocolate Pie
Ingredients
Crust
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
Bacon Brittle
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 tablespoon (packed) golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
1/4 cup Bacon that has been cut up into Bits
Chocolate filling
2 1/4 cups whole milk, divided
6 large egg yolks
2/3 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (such as Scharffen Berger or Valrhona)
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)
4 teaspoons cornstarch
4 ounces bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
Whipped Cream
1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream
3 tablespoons fine grade sugar
Chile Powder for dusting
Preparation for the crust:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish.
Mix melted butter, sugar, and salt in medium bowl. Add flour and mix until well blended. Press dough onto bottom and up sides of prepared dish; crimp edges decoratively. Bake crust until golden brown and cooked through, about 18 minutes. Cool crust completely on rack.
Preparation For bacon brittle:
Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk first 5 ingredients in medium bowl to blend. Stir in Bacon bits. Drop mixture by tablespoonfuls onto prepared sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. Behold, below, the tablespoonsfuls of bacon brittle mixture:
Bake until mixture spreads and is deep golden brown, about 18 minutes (mixture will flow together into 1 piece on baking sheet). Remove from oven; cool completely on sheet.
Break Bacon Brittle into irregular pieces or shards. This is what it looks like before it’s broken into pieces or shards (there’s a technical difference between these but I was afraid to ask Mrs. Pontiff for the details.)
Yeah it looks funky but om nom nom nom!
Preparation for chocolate filling:
Bring 2 cups milk to simmer in heavy medium saucepan; remove from heat. Whisk egg yolks, brown sugar, vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper and remaining 1/4 cup milk to blend in medium bowl; whisk in cocoa powder and cornstarch until smooth. Gradually whisk in hot milk mixture. Return mixture to saucepan. Whisk constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens and boils. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and butter; whisk until melted and smooth. Pour filling into cooled pie crust. Refrigerate until filling is cold and set, about 4 hours.
Preparation for whipped cream
Put mixing bowl in the freezer for 15 minutes. Using electric mixer, beat cream and powdered sugar until soft peaks form.
Cut pie into wedges. Serve with whipped cream and Bacon Brittle.
Sprinkle chile powder on top.
The final part of the recipe is: run fast to the kitchen to get it before others do because this pie is oh so delicious.
Josie
@Quiltingfool:
I was raised to make everything from scratch–cookies, cake, pie, biscuits, cornbread, you name it. After so many years, it is second nature to me. My daughter-in-law, whose outlook is similar to yours, teases me about being a domestic goddess. I am happy to report, however, that her 5 year old daughter is following in my footsteps and loves to cook right along with me. It’s a real bonding experience.
Josie
@Quiltingfool:
The secret to good banana bread, aside from the chocolate, of course, is yogurt and baking soda.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Josie: buttermilk works too.
Rileys Enabler
@Suzanne: this pumpkin bread is my go-to: https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/spiced-pumpkin-bread.html#tabrecipe
1. use 1/2 brown sugar to deepen the flavor instead of all white sugar
2. I do this as one loaf in a normal loaf pan. Her two loaf line confuses me.
also it freezes beautifully- I slice and wrap individually, then freeze in a freezer baggie. Yum!
Jay C
Dunno if it’s been noted, but I read a post outlining YET another Trump Legal Folly: this time in the NYS fraud case. Apparently, his crack(pot) attorneys submitted to Judge Engoron a list of some business entities covered under the judgement; which had mysteriously had their “business addresses” changed from New York (as per the original documentation) to Florida.
SRSLY, do they not think anyone is going to notice???
Sure Lurkalot
@Miss Bianca:
No kidding, it cannot be said enough, especially as proof that there is absolutely, positively no bottom for the Republican Party.
NotMax
Had a recipe for an orange-pistachio bread (more of a tea cake) but it long ago went walkabout.
Once experimented making a loaf using peanut butter, instant coffee and cocoa in the super duper bread machine which turned out very well. Might have to re-invent it again.
Rileys Enabler
@Quiltingfool: The secret to non-dry banana bread is to freeze the bananas in their skins once they start to get brown. Defrost, peel, and partially drain the fruit. The wet mush makes for a soft, moist crumb.
Edited to add: Narya got there first!
Josie
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Yup
TBone
@Sure Lurkalot: I’m not responsible for everything she says or writes. If I disagree with it, I have agency and can ignore it or make a comment to the contrary. Just scroll right on by.
NotMax
@TBone
Slide the batter into a medium oven. When you crack open the third can of Foster’s check for doneness.
:)
TBone
@Quiltingfool: hubby has that arrangement with me. It works really well.
TBone
@NotMax: always, some for me, some for the pot!
WaterGirl
@Quiltingfool: If it’s too dry, it’s because the outside has to get overdone in order for the inside to not still be gummy and uncooked.
I have decided it’s all about the pan you use to cook it in.
That’s why I make my banana bread in muffin tins – you don’t have to overcook the outside in order for the inside to be cooked.
Super moist that way.
Sure Lurkalot
Is pumpkin (as in pumpkin spice coffee, bread, etc) one of those things that people either love or hate? Because pumpkin stuff isn’t just meh to me, it’s yucky. But Suz loves it and one of my nieces is bonkers for it too.
I used to love banana bread and it’s okay but I really like zucchini bread. With lemon zest, chocolate not so much.
Decades ago, Alfalfa’s bakery had these corn blueberry muffins that were sublime. They were the perfect in between sweet and savory. If someone has a recipe…I might try baking again (other than zucchini bread, I don’t bake and people are thankful that I don’t).
Suzanne
@Rileys Enabler: I have substituted bourbon for the orange juice in this pumpkin bread recipe, to fantastic effect.
What can I say? I don’t always wanna run to the store to get OJ!
WaterGirl
@Jay C: It’s a good thing that the former judge is overseeing the whole organization.
Nearly everything I’ve read talks about how Engoron backed off his “corporate death penalty ruling” because that was the only vulnerability in terms of maybe his rulings being overturned.
But the ruling doesn’t actually say that Trump won’t get the corporate death penalty ruling; what it says is that the judge overseer person will make that determination.
So if Trump continues to try to pull things over on them, he is only increasing the likelihood that the trump organization actually will get the corporate death penalty, not just the 3-year limitations.
TBone
@WaterGirl: thanks for the King Arthur cocoa tip today! I can make my hot cocoa powder mix with it and Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake. SO good!
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/beattys-chocolate-cake-recipe-1947521
Jackie
@geg6:
Made from scratch with homemade cream cheese frosting! 😋🤤
TBone
@Suzanne: that’s using yer noggin!
TBone
@WaterGirl: sweet
TBone
@Mr. Bemused Senior: 💜
Another Scott
The CNN story:
I hate this framing.
He wasn’t indicted for lying about Biden’s family.
He was indicted for lying to the FBI.
Grr…,
Scott.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl:
Because it is.
It’s so mehhhhhh. I don’t hate it. If it’s there, I’ll eat it, and then feel bad for not saving the calories for something I really like! But I’m never excited about it.
I’m Italian. I blame it on that.
schrodingers_cat
@TBone: Hard pass. She is not credible. At all.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): @Sure Lurkalot: Agreed. She has been terrible for a really long time.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Made me look…
ReviewJournal.com:
Wikipedia – Gloria Navarro was appointed by Obama.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jackie
Someone in Biden’s circle needs to haul Dean Phillips’ ass behind the woodshed 😡
TBone
It’s a big tent with room for everyone (in my little world). Opinions are like assoles, everyone’s got one. If you don’t like one, try, try another. C’est la vie and live and let live and so forth. I don’t learn much by censoring my intake, but opposing and varied views enlarge my thinking.
zhena gogolia
@Tony G: Sorry, Smirnov is an extremely common name.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Same name though.
Bugboy
So, they’re going to pull the “2000 Mules” routine on this guy?
Jackie
Another reason to GOTV to keep Biden in the White House:
Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to be Homeland Security Secretary. 😱
https://www.rawstory.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-2667350492/
zhena gogolia
The name Smirnov has a “v” on the end, but in Russian, voiced paired consonants are pronounced unvoiced at the end of words. So it’s pronounced “smeerNOFF.” So some people transliterate it (or did, this was more common in the early 20th century) as Smirnoff rather than Smirnov. Same name.
TBone
@Jackie: she can also aspire to kiss my large, white, liberal ass
TBone
@Bugboy: is Mike Lindell in charge of that 😆 too? That’s the dumb thing I shoulda posted in the idiocy thread, remember him at the podium! I knew crack smokers with better business sense. ETA I know it was Dinesh but one’s as good as another in that category.
Harrison Wesley
@Jackie: Finally something productive. Instead of starting forest fires in California, we can use those Jewish space lasers to patrol the border! So much winning!
Sister Golden Bear
@Jay C: I’m sure Trump’s attorneys realized that the address changes would be noticed, but their client insisted. It’s definitely the sort of “one weird trick” the toddler-conman would try.
There’s been prior legal filings that were effectively ghost-written by Trump.
trollhattan
@Jackie: I’ll bet her idea of secretary involves sitting on laps, taking dictation.
As to “security” well….
TBone
@Harrison Wesley: 😆
Jeffro
omg I just cannot
actually, wait…I can…I can picture that in a Biden/Harris campaign ad!
Uncle Cosmo
Chocaholics Unanimous.
JWR
@Another Scott:
Yeah. Should be…
… but that would be too much like work.
TBone
@JWR: “lying to the FBI and the entire nation” might also work.
Kay
@Suzanne:
My public high school took home ec very seriously. I’m a lousy baker so that section was a drag but I like to sew so I enjoyed that.
We had a whole quick breads section. One day we were told to make muffins- we were assigned a boy to give them too. I got George Larson who was funny and my classmate since kindergarten – we laughed a lot. My muffins were so bad he took a bite and burst out laughing, looking at me.
He’s married to a man and works for a rare book dealer in Philadelphia.
scav
@Jay C: Ohhhh, it’s that tricky magical mind-power of the Orange Blob manifesting again!! Top Secret documents made Personal in a single undocumented neuron twitch!! Business Addresses equipped with roller-skates by same mysteeeeeeerious mental malarkey.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: depends on the sugar level and ingredients. If you would eat it for dessert, it’s equivalent to cake in my arrogant opinion.
Sister Golden Bear
Reposting for the day-time jackals
Latest in the Nex Benedict case, the Oklahoma non-binary kid who was severely beaten by three older girls in their school bathroom and died the next day.
In text messages released by the family, Nex revealed that those involved in their beating had a history of bullying them. Nex texted a friend “They had been bullying me and my friends and I got tired of it so I poured some water on them and all 3 came after me” and goes on to say the “School did not report to the police”.
Police have backtracked after claiming trauma “did not cause” Nex’s death, even though they were taken to the hospital over their head injury and experienced difficulty walking. They said this was based on the completed autopsy results — which they’re not planning to release until toxicology tests, etc. are done. The police update used the exact language released by the school the previous day.
However, now the police have filed a search warrant looking targeting the cell phones and lockers of those suspected of involvement in Nex’s death, which stated that “Owasso police officers suspect foul play involved and need to initiate an in-depth investigation into the death.”
Meanwhile the school says it will release security video — someday….
LGBTQ+ rights leaders are calling for a DOJ investigation into their death, casting doubt on the initial statements of local police officers and school officials.
The video is a tough view, but I urge you to watch if you’re up for it.
BlueGuitarist
@Josie:
@Patricia Kayden:
As Josie pointed out, retiring R rep Ken Buck said the Rs knew they shouldn’t trust Smirnov
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4482705-republican-colleagues-warned-informants-biden-claims-not-be-corroborated/amp/
trollhattan
@JWR: I’m pitching a sitcom I’m calling “Re-Arrested Development.” Who’s in?
Jackie
Yet another Comer “key witness” to impeach Biden busted for lying!
Cassie Hutchinson steps up to the plate, again!
grubert
@TBone: I’m not seeing the value of Kendzior’s writing this:
or this
Just not seeing the value here.. accusing Biden of acclimating us to mass death? What?
Mr. Bemused Senior
No, no! There’s a witness:
Now, whether he’s a credible witness I leave to your judgment.
wjca
When you are transliterating from a Cyrillic script to a Latin script, exactly which letter(s) is the correct equivalent can be unclear.
cain
@geg6:
I wonder though if you would like Carrot Halwa??? :-)
https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/carrot-halwa-recipe-gajar-ka-halwa-recipe/
Most westerners really don’t get it and generally find it odd. I don’t know of many who actually like it. But I looooove it.
Carrots you get in the north of India, are BRIGHT RED and really sweet. So, it’s really tasty there. The vegetables you get outside of the U.S. are delicious – it’s like eating in color vs black and white.
MisterForkbeard
@Sure Lurkalot: Kendzior has occasionally useful insights but largely went off the deepend a long time ago.
Adam thinks she’s crazy, if I remember correctly.
cain
@Jackie: He’s dead to all Democrats with that. It shows how completely unfit to be President he is.
cain
@Jackie:
Can we call her the Kurgan (the villain from Highlander movie)?? “If she wins the prize the earth will suffer endless darkness)
Jackie
GQP Senate candidates told to RUN FAR FAR AWAY AS FAST AS THEY CAN:
Matt McIrvin
@grubert: Kendzior is an outrage/doom merchant. Her line when Trump came in was that democracy was already dead and we weren’t coming back from this. So when Biden and Democrats *were* elected in later elections, that had to be a scam, just another face of authoritarianism. At one point before Trump was impeached, she claimed Nancy Pelosi was in pay of the Russians to protect Trump from impeachment. That was pretty much the point when I tuned out.
trnc
@scav: I suspect the personal records claim is being made since the Hur report was released. That was the first time I had heard about notes from classified briefings being allowed to be kept in diaries. Hur got around that by claiming that the same types of notes that were deemed to be “diaries” for Reagan are just “notebooks” for Biden.
Uncle Cosmo
@Suzanne: Just FTR I have fond memories of banana nut cake from my childhood waaaaaaaaaay too many years ago.
Most summers our out-of-town vacation (Dad’s 2 weeks off) were spent in the WV town where most of Mom’s siblings lived. About an hour from our destination (a grueling 8-hour drive pre-Interstates) we would stop by Dad’s older sister and BIL. When my aunt (a diabetic who loved to bake) heard we were coming, she’d have a banana nut cake fresh from the oven waiting for us, and for me in particular.
Only happened once a year, but I wonder what role gorging on that luscious cake might’ve played in my getting fat after 3rd grade…
So you’re Italian, I take it you mean of Italian ancestry? Well, so am I, hon, cento per cento. Kindly note no one, least of all yerstruly, is forcing banana bread or cake or muffins or whatever down your pie-hole. De gustibus and all that. (Something Jackals might want to remember next time they’re tempted to point at & mock the dietary preferences of Homo saps they don’t happen to agree with politically.)
Josie
@Jackie:
Poor Tommy T. didn’t get the memo in time, or maybe he just didn’t understand it. Too bad, so sad.
Ken
Even if true, as we went over (and over and over) when he first claimed he had declassified them, there is paperwork involved. Lots of paperwork. And none of that exists for the stuff he was hiding in his bathroom.
Ksmiami
@TBone: made it for a dessert special before- basically a banana’s foster bread pudding with whiskey creme anglaise
@WaterGirl: the only dark cocoa powder you’ll ever need is Vahlrhona
cain
@Jackie: lol – they can’t run away – even the national candidates are talking about a national ban. The states are showing what they are going to do with it and what the consequences are.
These states aren’t playing and will want to enforce it at the federal level.
Ksmiami
@Jackie: too late. The GOP has declared war on women and families. So it’s war they shall get.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Our side is not immune to falling for charlatans.
WaterGirl
@Kay: Great story.
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: a tablespoon or 2 of good maple syrup is an awesome enhancer to pumpkin baked goods.
Old School
@Jackie:
I guess I’m not completely sure what this is all about, but the picture shows him wearing a mask that doesn’t seem to be a ski mask. It also doesn’t show Meadows handing him anything.
I can’t say it proves definitively whatever both sides think it does.
It’s kind of weird Cassidy Hutchison was taking pictures of her boss meeting people in a parking lot.
The Thin Black Duke
@MisterForkbeard: Or maybe she’s following the money. People who are eager to talk trash about Democrats can make serious coin.
JWR
@Jackie:
There was discussion of that in the overnight thread, and it gets much, much worse:
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: not if you add dark chocolate, toasted pecans and coconut… then it’s heaven
Jackie
@cain: Abortion is one thing, but preventing white babies* via IVF is a bridge too far. The GQP has finally taken TOO BIG A BITE in sticking their business into women’s uteruses.
By their own admission, several GQP congress critters have children thanks to IVF – including former VP Pence.
*every couple I’ve seen interviewed being suddenly denied IVF were white couples in Alabama.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
This. I think we underestimate the amount of money sloshing around to oppose us.
Baud
@Jackie:
Life begins at
conceptionwhenever it’s convenient to me for it to begin.Anyway
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yes, there’s no end to the number of reactionary billionaires willing to fund those engaged in hot takes, contrarian insights, doom’n’gloom etc against Ds. Another version of the hack gap between Ds and Rthugs.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Yes. I left out a sarcasm tag.
On a more troubling note, Patel would likely be part of a second Trump administration. God forbid.
Soprano2
@Sister Golden Bear: We had an 8th grade girl badly beaten up here at the end of January. I don’t know if she was transgender, but it was the same MO – 3 girls beat her up really bad. There aren’t many details because they’re all minors, but it was all recorded on school cameras, plus one of the assailants recorded it on her cell phone. Schools still don’t have good solutions for bullying, there’s too much of the attitude “that’s how kids are what can we do?”
Soprano2
@Jackie: No, it’s an illustration of exactly what we said would happen, no “bashing” required. Just like they’re going to go after contraception by saying it causes abortions so they can outlaw it.
Ken
“Slippery slope” implies slow changes. The red states have turned it into a sheer cliff.
TBone
@grubert: for the nth time, I didn’t say I agree. I believe in listening to opposing and varied views; otherwise, I cannot combat them. The value is therein.
grubert
@Matt McIrvin: “Kendzior is an outrage/doom merchant”
Seems to be a lot of that going around these days.
Ken
By the end of his first administration, everyone even vaguely competent had left to write their tell-all books about how he was an idiot, and he was surrounded by below-the-bottom-of-the-barrel staff. That is the baseline for his second administration.
grubert
@TBone: got it.
( I tried to not blast, fwiw )
Soprano2
@Jackie: That’s because it’s expensive and not always covered by insurance.
schrodingers_cat
@grubert: I am guessing that this blog has acquired a new sophisticated troll.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: She is a grifter. Democracy is dying, now open your wallet.
TBone
Here’s Grandpa’s take 😆 howsat for varying views?
https://twitter.com/miragonz/status/1758682037282889802?s=20
Mr. Bemused Senior
Yes. Is it any wonder there are doom merchants around?
MisterForkbeard
@Mr. Bemused Senior: He’s been saying this for awhile, right? The problem is that he’s not credible, it wasn’t communicated in any way or written down/commemmorated, and literally no one took action.
So in any of the above cases: The declassification didn’t actually happen. Trump can’t even pretend it DID, because he was informed that the docs were still classified 6-12 months before this all went public. The legal thing to do would have been to return them, get them corrected, and then get them back.
Instead, he gave US National Security the finger and then put the documents in his bathroom.
schrodingers_cat
@TBone: You are full of shit. You recommended Kendzior’s writings. After you were called on it you are backtracking.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Yes, though of course he is pretending, and getting his lawyers to go along.
I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a lawyer working for him. “Soul-destroying” comes to mind.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Which is why Biden needs to win and we need to keep the Senate.
2 more years of judges at high speed
And, if we keep the Senate in 2026…it would be 8 years of judges at high speed.
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: have you read them? I said I admire her ability to tell a good story. I said I don’t have to agree with her to do so.
Josie
@TBone:
That was ugly. What was the value of posting such crap?
rikyrah
@Jay C:
They are ridiculous
The Thin Black Duke
@schrodingers_cat: I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. For instance, I was a huge Harlan Ellison fan back in the day. Having said that, although I still value his work, I couldn’t recommend him to contemporary readers because there’s stuff there that hasn’t aged well at all. (The vile, misogynist-fueled ending of A Boy and his Dog.)
It’s a bummer when our idols with feet of clay track dirt onto the rugs of our homes.
TBone
@Josie: comment #163
Josie
@TBone:
Bullshit.
Marcopolo
@TBone: look, i haven’t read any of sarah k’s recent stuff (never listened to her podcast). however, after drumpf became president in 2016 she did a lot of good writing on how countries can slide into authoritarianism and how to fight that (think the book was called Notes from Flyover Country or something like that). she lives in StL and she was like our homegrown version of tim snyder. but people change (god knows i think Covid just broke a lot of folks brains or sometimes it’s following the $) and while i can see her point about how we, societally, are becoming more desensitized to death seems to me it’s been happening for a while & what’s going on in Gaza (or Ukraine or Sudan or the Central African Republic or Syria or take your pick) are all symptoms of something greater than anything the Biden admin is responsible for. as Tbone said though, it’s often valuable to read what folks are thinking even when you totally disagree w/ them. hell, even brazilian glenn wrote one good book during George W’s time in office.
M31
lol I love the smell of DISARRAY in the morning
groveboy
@OzarkHillbilly: my wife’s banana bread is to die for. Warm out of the oven and slathered with butter. Melts in your mouth.
TBone
@Marcopolo: thank you! Sheesh, errybody making me feel some sorta way for being tolerant.
schrodingers_cat
@Marcopolo: Giving people like Sarah K clicks and spreading her disinformation and helping her grift is neither mind expanding nor a soceital good. YMMV
I blocked her on Twitter when she started ranting about Nancy Pelosi being on the Russian payroll.
TBone
I just read my daily Story People email:
“You are all the hot air in my balloon. Let’s go to the moon.”
cain
@Jackie: Nikki apparently walking back her statement on support. The woman is a disaster. Just stupid ass mistakes. She has no moral standards and is a total weather vane. Her political instincts are terrible.
Josie
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m beginning to think you have a point.
groveboy
@Quiltingfool: wife adds some applesauce to her recipe, keeps it moist
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: never having had a Twitter account, I was not privy to that. I won’t share anything more.
cain
@Jackie: Not just him – but Nikki Haley herself!
Marcopolo
@The Thin Black Duke: second this. have been reading (rereading) all the hugo winners for novel & so much misogyny, white male savior, lack or representation stuff right on up into the 80s. on a different tack, honestly, it’s weird to me how people can seemingly uproot their way of thinking about everything (i mean i don’t think i have—at least yet @ 61) without even a backwards glance. i saw a clip of RFK jr from the 2000 Prez election where he was imploring folks to not vote for Nader cause Bush had to be defeated. he was making sense. wtf happened? assume maybe money or ego or drugs (or a combination) for him but wow. the way folks can just shift like this is both fascinating & horrifying to me.
cain
@Baud: One must be careful of the ‘infected’. (L4D reference)
WaterGirl
@Old School: Unless she was already feeling uneasy about what she was seeing or uneasy about things she had to do, and was trying to document things just in case.
Kristine
Banana bread is a favorite of mine. This basic recipe is my go-to. I add additional spices or chocolate chips, depending. Dryness has never been a problem.
This Double-Chocolate recipe from Smitten Kitchen is really good too.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@TBone:
I wrote above, I stopped reading when I reached Sarah Kendzior’s implied criticism of Joe Biden as callous, “Under Biden, a different faction of Americans — Democrats — are being primed for the inhumanity that a full-fledged authoritarian regime requires.”
We live in a world where some people choose deliberately to be cruel, hateful, violent. In addition, we have weapons of unimaginable power. I use the word “unimaginable” advisedly. Is it possible to imagine the deaths and worse of millions of people with a single nuclear detonation?
Yet leaders in this world have to contemplate such scenarios. There is cruelty at every scale, children beating another child to death, wars, famine, wanton destruction. I thank God for Joe Biden. I think Sarah Kendzior’s criticism of him is beneath contempt.
Just my opinion.
WaterGirl
@TBone: I don’t think anyone here minds it if you want to read someone that most of think has lost the plot and is writing harmful bullshit.
But unless you are recommending Sarah K, which it appeared that you were, but you now say you were not – or you are including some Sarah K text to say that what she has said is bullshit, I don’t understand why you would be posting her stuff here?
schrodingers_cat
@The Thin Black Duke: This is not the first time they have pinged my bs detector.
Marcopolo
So a long time ago Dick Gephardt was my congressman in DC. Then he ran for president, was humiliated in Iowa, and slunk off to a very lucrative career as an inside the beltway lobbyist. Left MO way behind. My opinion of him has not been high. But, today I discovered he was one of the primary people who talked Manchin down for mounting a 3rd party presidential bid! Even better, he viscerally hates No Labels & sees wrecking them as a personal mission. He just jumped quite a bit in my esteem. Here’s a link to the article talking about this: https://newrepublic.com/article/179244/no-labels-spoiler-bid-manchin-meltdown-mode
The Thin Black Duke
@schrodingers_cat: I know. This isn’t your first rodeo.
But your concerns are legitimate. I’m willing to give T the benefit of the doubt regarding his admiration for a wordsmith that got him through the day.
However, If T is bringing up an author on a platform that gets a fair amount of traffic, there should be a warning label if there are problematic aspects there that people aren’t aware of.
delphinium
@cain: Ha ha! Just saw my first Nikki Haley yard sign today, wonder how long they will have it up.
Marcopolo
@The Thin Black Duke: so to be informed i just skimmed SK’s latest substack post. smdh. there’s some good/writing thinking but she’s become a bit of a nihilist & lost the overall plot. depressing. i have my days when i wtf throw up my hands at the state of things (currently it’s the destruction of journalism as a way to accurately understand the world) but it’s always clear to me that there is good & bad (no matter how muddy) and i choose good.
CarolPW
@schrodingers_cat: A rare time in which we are in total agreement. Very smoothly done too.
ETA: smooth referring to their insertion into the blog.
cain
Nikki has now opened herself to attacks based on her IVF statement about IVF and using IVF herself. Attacks like “how many embryos were discarded during you IVF?”, “do you feel justified to use IVF when so many potential babies have been thrown away”, “what will you tell your kids about all the potential sisters and brothers, that you killed to get them?”
Since she has no moral foundation, she’s going to have a hard time figuring out what to say given her use of IVF and her now expedient political views on IVF.
Paul in KY
@TBone: I looove a fine banana bread!
Old School
Just so TBone doesn’t feel completely ganged up against, I’d like to state I’ve never felt they were a troll.
cain
Man, I just assumed that Tbone posted those links so that we can collectively mock them. I don’t think we need to judge a person by what links they put up. Let’s not be so aggressive with fellow travelers. It leads to a less safe space for everyone overall.
rikyrah
I know that’s right.
Lori Granito 💛🐝🇺🇦🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈✊🏾 (@lorigspeaks) posted at 7:25 AM on Thu, Feb 22, 2024:
This is the one thing we need to be careful of this election cycle – Republicans running as Dems who will switch parties or be Manchin-esque.
(https://x.com/lorigspeaks/status/1760657071144304750?t=f-y4J2RF1VBj9gnU6RT0Zg&s=03)
rikyrah
@cain:
It was the most Republican of positions that she took.
I got mine – a child.
Phuck you if you don’t have or can’t get yours.
I don’t know anything that sums up basic GOP philosophy more than this.
rikyrah
18 GOP-held Biden districts targeted to flip blue (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 5:42 PM on Thu, Feb 22, 2024:
conservative & pink-voter white women see themselves as free agents with just enough physical & social mobility, economic security, race & class privilege to be able to survive the worst of whatever Trump has planned for us, even Project 2025
scary thing is, they’re not wrong
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1760812225579622562?s=02)
Josie
@cain:
I disagree. I reserve the right to speak up against links that are posted with absolutely no context and are ugly in spirit and expression. YMMV
Paul in KY
@Sure Lurkalot: Who the fuck wrote that?!?
cain
@rikyrah: It’s just like that asshole Greg Abbott like this:
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/20/texas-voting-mail-ballot-disabilities-abbott-veto/
Against helping folks with disabilities. The man is cracked.
Paul in KY
@Jay C: Just a coincidence…
cain
@Josie: You can speak up, and you can educate. You don’t need to be aggressive and assume something malignant. We gave that idiot eversor how many choices for the crap he was dishing out? We were way more patient with that guy IMHO.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: Just cause you guys got tiramasu….
cmorenc
@cain:
On the upside, if Nikki becomes President, she will be among the most physically fit people to ever hold the office, from all the vigorous walking she is having to do during the campaign.
:=)
Anyway
@Paul in KY:
And cannoli
Matt McIrvin
@Mr. Bemused Senior: She’s not just saying he’s callous– I’ve seen far better commentators than her criticizing Biden’s immigration policy and stance on Israel/Palestine; I don’t regard any of that as immune– she’s saying that Biden is part of a conspiracy to reinstall Trump as dictator, and this is both completely insane and sadly of a piece with other stuff she’s said.
Old School
@Paul in KY:
Sarah Kendzior. Thus the blowback from other commenters.
Josie
@cain:
Not me. I pied Eversor and will probably do the same here. This one just kind of took me by surprise.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: I think it was more that they admired some actually good stuff Kendzior wrote. Hell, I was following Kendzior on Twitter before I realized what she was doing.
It’s a little different from Greenwald’s grift. Greenwald’s thing was that we all have the political spectrum reversed and the Democrats are actually more right-wing than Mr. Trump, who I do not support. Kendzior’s line is that the political spectrum is fake and the Democrats are secretly in cahoots with Trump.
smith
Re Nikki Haley and IVF, I think it’s been clarified that she used artificial insemination, not IVF.
It doesn’t make her position, whatever it turns out to be once she stops floundering, any more acceptable, but not quite so profoundly hypocritical. No such excuse for Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California, however, and I’m sure we will find a lot more like her.
dnfree
@Rileys Enabler: My banana bread is moist using just overripe bananas that would otherwise be tossed in the garbage. I have never made banana bread with frozen overripe bananas. I only make it to keep from throwing bananas in the trash. They have to be pretty far gone.
Ivan X
@TBone: To give you the benefit of the doubt, I’ve been on the wrong end of a dogpile here, and it’s no fun. I also think it’s true that Kendzior did some important writing, and I’m sure she still gets it right sometimes, like any stopped clock. (I never paid much attention to her one way or the other because I can’t read writers who are mostly negative most of the time. I need a little hope to get me through my day.)
But, you “highly recommended” “all” of Kendzior’s work (your words). In the absence of a disclaimer, that suggests, to me, that you consider her to be someone you admire, and who is right most or all of the time, and whose words should be taken seriously. You also highly recommended a specific piece she wrote.
Which, as Watergirl says, is fine. You can enjoy whomever you like. Yet, Kendzior has written some things that readers of this blog take predictable offense to — she has accused Democrats of conspiracy, right in the very piece you recommended we read — so you should not be terribly surprised when readers express their offense. With the exception of one person, they’ve done so in a pretty respectful way, going so far to reasonably ask how you reconcile some of the offensive things she’s written, to which you haven’t really responded.
You’ve instead said things that you like about her (her ability to tell a story) and that you don’t necessarily have to agree with everything she writes to like her. Also fine, except that it’s comes off as disingenuous after you’ve quoted her and “highly recommended” a specific piece and “all” of her writing. It doesn’t square. You asked us to be influenced by someone who some of us don’t trust and don’t like for reasonable reasons, but you won’t own it, and that’s angering.
I think if the outset you’d acknowledged where she fails, or if after being politely challenged you’d responded and said “fair point, I still think she still sometimes has some good points to make, despite this obviously offensive thing you pointed out that I’d forgotten” then people wouldn’t be annoyed with you.
Paul in KY
@TBone: I think that writer is FOS for saying ‘Biden is a placeholder President’ etc. etc., but I understand your point of view.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne: When I was a skinny(er) young’un, I used to really like lemon poppyseed bread. That shit was the boom.
Paul in KY
@cain: She’s after power like Sauron was after his ring. It consumed him and it consumes her.
Chetan Murthy
@TBone: She had a really good one on Merrick the Spineless: https://sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/servants-of-the-mafia-state
Paul in KY
@Marcopolo: You should be reading Nebula winners! Of course, in many years a novel won both…
Paul in KY
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Pres. Biden, if he determines it is necessary, will order men and women to their certain death. It is part of the job. A terrible part, but one Pres. Biden understands.
Paul in KY
@Anyway: Yeegads!!! I forgot about cannoli! Just because you guys have been ‘civilized’ for 2200 years…
Paul in KY
@Old School: She is completely cray cray and a ‘useful idiot’ to TFG and his GQP minions.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: I actually liked Glenn back in the early days of Batshit McChimpy…
WaterGirl
@Paul in KY: Enemy propoganda.
WaterGirl
@Chetan Murthy: But he’s not spineless.
WaterGirl
it’s not the end of the day yet, but we are running out of daylight if we are going to get cake today, Come on, Supreme Court. Unless they plan to wait to announce at midnight when everyone is sleeping?
Gravenstone
Fuck off, Kenny. Trump’s impeachments were both valid exercises of the law. The fact your party chose to protect his corrupt ass in the Senate trials is entirely on them.
Paul in KY
@WaterGirl: With malice aforethought or just an idiot, but yup.
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: That ending ruined the story for me. I would recommend a lot of his stuff, I think his commentary about TV is still relevant.
Soprano2
@Marcopolo: Yep, I have that book; people here would agree with most of it. Something broke him, maybe Obama’s election. Too many people projected all their hopes and dreams onto Obama, and got angry when he didn’t do exactly what they thought he should.
Soprano2
@cain: That’s what happens when you don’t have any convictions of your own and instead quickly say what you think your side wants to hear.
Gravenstone
Do you want this in charge of … anything?
Glidwrith
@Soprano2: If those bitches were in any of the schools my husband oversees, they’d be expelled in a heartbeat after calling the police.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
Cupcakes?
WisPolitics.com:
(Emphasis added.)
(via Memeorandum)
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: A lot of people did! He became a major “left” figure because he was criticizing Bush at a time when people needed that.
I gave him a lot of slack when he was going after Obama over the drone war, though I did think it was a little disingenuous that he was cherry-picking the one thing where you could say Obama was “worse than Bush” (because the drone program was just getting started under Bush) and relentlessly flogging that. But I figured he was just anti- whoever was in power.
His caping for Trump while insisting he was not a Trump supporter was really where my patience ran out. And then when Trump got in, actually escalated the drone war, and Greenwald’s response was not to pivot to attacking Trump but to go after Trump’s critics… that made it crystal clear he was a pure hack.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I saw that earlier and was going to make a post with that PLUS the awesome interview with Ben Wikler on Pod Save America last night.
Ben takes us through the history of the last 15 years in Wisconsin – he is a very engaging speaker – how WI got to be the most gerrymandered state and the stepping stones that got them from there to here.
I’m never sure if I should still put up a post after people bring stuff up in the comments?
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Lots of folks don’t have time to read all the comments.
Post away!
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: I stopped reading him when he started getting on Pres. Obama.
NotMax
@>a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2024/02/23/if-at-first-you-dont-succeed-2/#comment-9114989″>dnfree
Overripe bananas? 2-ingredient cookies.
(I cheat and add a third ingredient into the mix, a sprinkling of cinnamon.)
Rathskeller
@TBone:
but you wrote
what’s actually written in that article quickly moves into insanity.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: It looks like he was a public defender in Nevada so it makes sense that he has extra sympathy for accused people.
Starfish
@Soprano2: Schools DO have solutions for bullying so it is amazing that there are schools like this.
Some schools do school climate surveys asking the kids if they feel safe in school at the beginning of every year. If kids don’t feel safe in your school, that is the type of environment where all sorts of bad things happen (including school shootings.)
My child is a feeler’s feeler so when teachers see him upset over something, they will encourage him to fill out a form to report the behavior or go see the counselor.
The behavior could be something like “so-n-so called me stickboy, and that made me sad” and the vice principal goes and talks to all involved empathizing with the kid saying that “Yeah, it is upsetting to be called names you didn’t want to be called” and telling the kids doing the name calling that we only call people names they want to be called. That puts the kids on notice that the ADULTS are watching and are not going to cast a blind eye to all their nonsense.
Remember, the younger shooter at STEM School Highlands Ranch was a trans kid who was getting bullied in that school.